A practical guide to all aspects of feature writing for journalists and freelance writers.

To write, we must read. To write well, we must study the best. Matthew Ricketson has done that distilling essentials of the craft into a practical text equally valuable to the learner and the practising professional.'

Andrew Rule, Walkley Award-winning journalist

Matthew Ricketson's book is both useful and thought provoking. For the young reporter struggling to write features, it provides a good basic primer. For those interested in pushing the boundaries of the journalistic form, it provides encouragement and provocation.'

Margaret Simons, award-winning journalist and author of Meeting of the Waters

More feature stories are being published in newspapers and magazines than ever before, ranging from lifestyle spreads about the search for the perfect chocolate mud cake to investigative series about the illegal trade in wildlife. Feature stories offer journalists the chance to move beyond conventional news reporting and write more creatively.

Written by an experienced journalist and teacher, this practical guide shows how to write both elementary and more sophisticated feature stories. It explains how to:

* generate fresh ideas

* organise your time efficiently

* gather factual and personal information

* sift and sort raw material

* find the best way to tell the story

* write the story

* edit and proofread your work

* work with editors.

Matthew Ricketson has worked as a journalist since 1981 with The Age, The Australian and Time Australia. He has won several awards, including a United Nations Media Peace Prize citation and the George MunsterAward. He freelances for various publications and comments regularly on radio about media issues. A senior lecturer at RMIT, he has run the Journalism program there since 1995. His biography, Paul Jennings: The boy in the story is always me' was published in 2000.